When the London Stock Exchange reopened at precisely 1:30 p.m., everyone expected to witness the final collapse of the Future Industries Group.
The morning had been catastrophic.
The press was sharpening their quills.
The short-selling syndicates were celebrating with champagne.
Von Krupp, the German banker who had orchestrated the attack, believed the final blow would now land effortlessly.
But the moment the opening bell rang…
Something impossible happened.
It began with a single trade.
Then a second.
Then a dozen.
Then a deluge.
An eruption of massive buy orders flooded the market from every direction, crashing into the trading floor like regiments of heavy cavalry charging across an open field.
These orders had one terrifying characteristic:
They did not care about price.
No hesitation.
No negotiation.
No caution.
Only pure, overwhelming force.
"What—what is happening?!"
Brokers who had spent their entire lives dissecting the market stared at their ticker sheets in disbelief.
"Who in God's name is buying at a time like this?"
"Where is this money coming from?!"
"Is someone attempting… a reversal?!"
The trading hall trembled with panic, astonishment, and disbelief.
The price of Future Industries Group — which had been plummeting like a waterfall all morning — suddenly struck an invisible floor.
And stopped falling.
Not gradually.
Not slowly.
Just—
Stopped.
As if a giant hand had seized the collapsing graph and held it firmly in place.
Meanwhile, in Von Krupp's private office…
The man himself stared at the incoming data with a frozen, corpse-like expression.
"What is this?" he whispered.
A trader burst into the room, face white with panic.
"Sir! A massive buying force has appeared out of nowhere! They're absorbing every share we throw at the market!"
Von Krupp's throat tightened.
"Investigate! Immediately! I want the origin of these funds identified!"
But before any report could come back—
The nightmare evolved.
The mysterious buyers began to attack.
Not merely absorbing shares dumped at low prices…
But aggressively purchasing stock above market value.
That was when the curve turned.
It didn't stabilize.
It shot upward.
Vertically.
Like a spear stabbing toward the heavens.
"Oh God… it's a short squeeze!"
A veteran broker — a man who had survived the Panic of 1825 — let out a strangled scream.
"They're hunting the shorts! It's a bloody execution!"
The Exchange erupted.
Men cursed, fell to their knees, tore at their hair.
Others simply clutched their heads in disbelief as the impossible unfolded.
Within ten minutes, the stock recovered its entire 40% morning loss.
Then it kept rising.
+10%
+20%
+35%
+50%
By the time the curve breached that last exclamation point, the entire trading floor felt like a cathedral witnessing a miracle — or a massacre.
Back inside Von Krupp's office
The triumph that had filled the room only hours earlier was now replaced with raw terror.
Von Krupp's expensive silk shirt clung to his back, soaked through with sweat.
"This… this cannot be happening," he muttered, voice trembling. "Arthur Lionheart had no liquidity. None! He poured everything into that damned ironclad. He should be helpless!"
"Sir!" another trader shouted, panic choking his words. "Our margins are evaporating! The Exchange has issued a liquidation warning!"
"Sir! We're being forcibly closed!"
"Sir—our positions are gone!"
Every voice was a blade.
Every report, a guillotine.
Von Krupp swayed, grabbing the edge of his mahogany desk to steady himself. His face had drained of all color.
He understood, with a sickening clarity, that he had been played.
From the beginning.
The Queen's physician.
The article in The Times.
The rumors about the ironclad being halted.
All of it had been bait.
A carefully crafted trap designed to lure wolves exactly like him — proud, greedy, and blind — into the slaughterhouse.
He whispered the name like a curse:
"Arthur Lionheart…"
Only now did he understand:
He had not provoked a naive industrialist.
He had provoked a man who smiled like a gentleman and thought like a general — and fought like a devil.
While Von Krupp contemplated whether jumping into the Thames might be less painful…
The headquarters of the Future Industries Group held a sudden, urgent press conference.
And there, standing perfectly composed in an impeccably tailored suit, appeared the man responsible for the greatest short-seller massacre the London Exchange had ever seen.
Prince Consort Arthur Lionheart.
He stepped toward the podium with the calm assurance of a man who had already won long before the battle began.
Camera flashes burst like tiny explosions across the hall.
Arthur smiled politely, lifted a hand in greeting, and spoke with deceptive gentleness.
**"Ladies and gentlemen…
First, allow me to thank a number of anonymous 'friends' who, earlier today, generously assisted us in performing a highly efficient market cleansing."**
A ripple of laughter — nervous, but undeniable — swept across the room.
Arthur continued:
"And now, a second matter of importance."
His tone shifted — quieter, yet carrying the weight of iron.
"A short while ago, I received new instructions from Her Majesty the Queen."
The hall fell silent.
"Her Majesty believes that the ironclad project is vital to the century-long future of the Empire and must not be delayed under any circumstances."
Arthur paused.
Then his voice thundered:
"Therefore, Her Majesty has ordered — from her own private treasury — an unlimited financial commitment to accelerate the construction of the imperial ironclad."
Gasps filled the hall.
But Arthur was not done.
"In other words," he continued, eyes gleaming with royal authority,
"the project will not slow down."
"It will expand."
"It will double in funding and double in speed."
"And the Empire shall soon witness the rise of its steel colossus on the Thames."
The room detonated into applause.
Reporters fell over each other to relay the news.
And the Stock Exchange?
It erupted like a powder keg.
Buy orders surged with such ferocity that even the veteran traders felt faint.
By the time the closing bell rang, the stock price of the Future Industries Group had doubled from the previous day.
Not recovered.
Doubled.
Arthur Lionheart had turned a crisis into a coronation.
By swallowing every cheap share the shorts had dumped, he consolidated control of his commercial empire.
By crushing the short-seller syndicate, he removed an entire network of hostile capital.
And by bringing Queen Victoria's private treasury into the fold, he bound the monarchy itself even closer to his industrial ascension.
It was not merely a victory.
It was a symphony.
A masterpiece.
That night
A confidential report reached Arthur's residence in Buckingham Palace.
It detailed the true source of the short-selling campaign.
And at the bottom of the page…
A name.
Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Arthur stared at it for a long moment.
Then he exhaled slowly, almost amused.
"So it was you."
Prince Albert — his rival in prestige, in influence, and in the affections of the court — had emptied his own financial arsenal to strike at him.
Arthur folded the report neatly, set it beside a silver candleholder, and touched flame to the corner.
The parchment curled and blackened.
"Talent, rhetoric, fortune…
One by one, you've lost them all," Arthur murmured, voice soft but merciless.
"How will a prince with no wealth challenge the man who holds the Empire's future?"
The ashes fluttered into the tray like grey snow.
Arthur Lionheart leaned back, utterly at ease.
In a single day, he had accomplished a flawless triple triumph:
Defeat the enemy.
Break their spirit.
Profit from their downfall.
The sensation was intoxicating.
And only the beginning.